Will the threat of the apocalypse trigger serious leadership on climate change (Rosie Boycott, May 20)? Not while the debate remains stuck on the costs of a low-carbon economy. We need to turn the debate on its head and start focusing on the opportunities presented by climate change and the benefits of creating sustainable places. The evidence suggests that low-carbon cities would be healthier, fairer, more sociable and competitive places. That's a much more attractive proposition than all the guilt and scolding which normally pervades debates on climate change.
It's shaped our thinking behind the first Climate Change Festival, being held over nine days in Birmingham this June. It's about focusing on the opportunity, rather than the threat. Levers already exist at the city scale to move quickly to a low-carbon economy. And city leaders have many of the powers - over land use and procurement, for example, - that are required to achieve it. The problem is that few politicians believe they have a public mandate for radical change. What we most need right now is to fire the public imagination for well-designed, sustainable cities.
Chair, Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment
In their response to criticism of a World Bank-hosted pilot programme for climate resilience (Funding a world of low-carbon growth, May 19), UK ministers rightly point out that developing countries have long demanded financial resources to deal with a warming planet. What they neglected to mention is that a place already exists that accepts donations from developed countries - the UN adaptation fund, approved in Bali last December. Developing countries won a hard-fought battle for a majority of seats on the executive board of the fund. The World Bank's approach is a step backwards.
Institute for Policy Studies, Washington DC